


The Drumbeat in Your Chest

by TheBashfulPoet



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 16:00:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12708234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBashfulPoet/pseuds/TheBashfulPoet
Summary: It was never supposed to be like this. He was never supposed to feel like this. He wasn’t supposed to feel ever. Not like this. Not when he wasn’t on a roof, feet dangling in the air and the rush of the fall threatening to pull him over the edge. Not when the only other cause is nowhere near him.And really that’s the problem, isn’t it?Or the one where Andrew feels and Neil disassociates.





	The Drumbeat in Your Chest

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I read this series nearly a month ago now and have completely fallen in love with these boys. So, of course, I just had to try my hand a writing them. I hope you enjoy this fic and that these guys aren't too OOC (I tried, I promise)

            It was never supposed to be like this. He was never supposed to _feel_ like this. He wasn’t supposed to feel _ever_. Not like this. Not when he wasn’t on a roof, feet dangling in the air and the rush of the fall threatening to pull him over the edge. Not when the only other cause is nowhere near him.

            And really that’s the problem, isn’t it?

            He doesn’t really know how it all happened. One moment he’s lying in his bed in Columbia, legs impossibly tangled together with a certain idiot’s in a rare moment of intimacy with what could be something akin to contentment bubbling in his chest (not that he would ever admit it out loud, even to his idiot). Then Neil is waking up, his shockingly blue eyes still bleary with sleep and the soft look of fondness mixed with disbelief marring his features, almost as if he still cannot fathom that he’s safe (something Andrew has kissed into his skin time and time again, each a silent promise to keep him so). He leans forward (slowly. Always slowly) to press their mouths together in little more than a slight press of lips. That had been happening more lately, their kisses losing the urgency that once had driven them to seek each other in each private moment they could steal throughout the day when they first began whatever it was between them (his mind refused to name what his heart so clearly knew). Instead it has been replaced with something softer, their movements slow and tender with touches featherlight and cautious as they learned new boundaries and erased others. Like they had all the time in the world to do so. And damn it, he thought they _did_ , or at least more time than _this._

            So when Neil pulled away and untangled himself from Andrew for his morning run, Andrew though nothing more of it, content to roll back over and let his mind slip into unconsciousness for another hour or two of sleep until he returned. But when he opened his eyes, Neil wasn’t there with a cup of coffee and a mischievous smirk that usually greeted him when he woke. Instead, there is the empty air of a still room. If he had known, he would never have let the idiot get out of bed.

            But he didn’t and that is exactly how he found himself here, fingers wrapped around the steering wheel of his Maserati like a vice, his knuckles white against his already pale skin, and eerie silence in his mind as the drumming beat slamming against his ribs fills every nook and cranny of his thoughts. Because Neil never came back from that run; because Neil has been missing for a little more than two days now and Andrew was _feeling_.

            “ _Damn it,_ ” he slams a fist against the wheel and presses his foot a little harder on the gas.

            He doesn’t know what he’s doing out on the road; it’s not as if he could pick up Neil’s tracks days later after both a rainfall and the general hustle and bustle of the city (not that his first venture provided much more insight a few hours after Andrew realized something was wrong), but the need to be outside —to _do_ something— still driving him into his car and off around of Neil’s favorite beaten paths for running. But not even the rumbling of the engine through his body is enough to loosen the tightness in his chest, each heartbeat screaming that Neil was gone. Neil. Neil. _Neil._

            It’s so loud that he almost misses his phone ringing in the cup holder at his elbow. It wasn’t the ringtone he wants. He answers it with little more than a brash, “What.”

            “Oh thank god you picked up!” Nicky’s voice rushes through the other end, his tone pitched high and strained, “Where the hell are you?!”

            He’s tempted to hang up, leaving the line open in case Neil- “You have five seconds to get to the point of this call before I hang up.”

            “We found him.”

            Everything stops in perfect silence.

            “What?”

            “Andrew, we found Neil.”

            “Where.” It’s not a question. Nor will it be ignored, at least not if Nicky wants to keep on breathing.

            “He just showed up covered in blood at the dorms and he’s not talking and he is just staring into space with this far off look in his eye and-”

            “Nicky. _Where_.”

            “We’re in Matt’s truck heading to Palmetto Health. Andrew-”

            But he’s already hanging up, yanking the car over two lanes to redirect his route for the hospital (the cacophony of horns in his wake a dull hum of white noise compared to the restart of the drumbeat in his chest). The tightness was back, but the tension relaxed ever so slightly and the need to find was replaced with the need to reach. Because _he’s alive_. Bloody, bruised and maybe a little broken, but _alive_. Something he wasn’t so sure was possible at this point any more (something that had what could only be called _fear_ clawing his throat and freezing his veins). And so the drumbeat carried on.

            Neil. Neil. Neil.

***

            It takes him nearly 30 minutes to get to the hospital, the usual time cut in half by the press of the gas pedal to the floor of the car and nearly a dozen traffic laws disregarded in his haste to reach his idiot before anything else could possibly happen. When he pulls into the lot, it takes no time at all to spot the monstrosity of a truck that Matt drives and the empty spot that lies next to it as if waiting for him. Throwing the car into park the moment he safely navigates into the space, he’s out of the car in a few swift moments. Of course, it is then that his eye catches a splash of red against the white of the truck. A closer look tells him it’s a smear of blood against the handle of the passenger door.

            His first thought is of Nicky’s words. That his idiot is covered in blood — whose blood is a question Andrew refuses to guess right now, but if pressed he already knew the answer (Neil always was the martyr type). The second is an overwhelming urge to _hurt_. To destroy anything that dared to lay their hands on what’s _his_. On what he swore to himself to protect no matter the lack of deal in place (something that burned him some days and saved him others). He would watch them burn for this. He’d watch the world burn.

            But first, he needed to know who, to know what direction this rage needed to be pointed at. And for that to happen, he needed to talk with a certain idiot and hear the facts. With a new steely determination, he slams the door shut and stalks toward the emergency room entrance, bypassing the usual crowd of drunks and vaguely sick people for the reception desk. From there he ‘s directed to a waiting room in the ICU where the foxes are in varied forms of disarray.

            Matt is in one of the hospital’s plastic waiting chairs, his tall form hunched over his knees with his head in his red-stained hands and fingers buried deep and tight in his hair. Upon closer inspects, he can see the blood staining the front of the backliner’s shirt (the monster in him growling at the sight, making Andrew have to shove it down to keep his face neutral. Not now). Next to him is Dan, her dark arms wrapped around Matt’s shoulders and her head resting against him in both a soothing gesture and exhaustion. Her eyes are red, the only sign that she’d been crying, and her face twisted in a combination of hate and worry. Besides them are Renee and Allison, their hands tightly clasped together in a deadly grip and their bodies tight lines of barely contained anger (something Andrew agrees with on an instinctual level). However, it is Renee’s eyes that capture his attention, the familiar gleam in them that echoes of the life she once lived, the one that required the knives resting beneath the black material on his arms.

            Nicky sits across from the upperclassmen, his back pointed at the entrance Andrew hovers in now and his shoulders noticeably shaking from the audible sobs that fill the otherwise quiet room. Pacing in front of him is Kevin, hands folded behind his back and mouth quirked down in a slight grimace. The look on his face screams of concentration, no doubt calculating precisely how long it will take Neil to recover enough to make it back on court and exactly how much this will set him back in terms of making court (he’ll gut the junkie if he even _thinks_ about stepping on the court a second before Abby or the doctor clears it). It’s almost cold and callous if not for the flicker of pure fear and worry that mars his face a second later, his right hand tightening around the scarred left one unconsciously. Despite his obsession for the sport, Kevin knew just as well that Andrew that Neil would always be more (that he had done so much more for either of them).

            The only one who seems to be missing is his own twin (not that he’d be surprised. Aaron and Neil were not exactly known to be close), but a quick turn of his head reveals him to be standing off in the corner, his back pressed against the wall, arms folded across his chest and an air of boredom about him. The monster would probably have snarled at the sight if it were not for the glimmer of anger lingering his twin’s eyes or the too stiff set of his shoulders. His brother never did learn to mimic Andrew’s own careful blank mask, his emotions always a clear tell that would shine through whatever cheap imitation he would try.

            Oddly enough it is not his brother who notices him standing there but rather Renee whose eyes snap to meet his and his name falling from her lips in a soft whisper. It is like a dam breaks amongst the foxes, everyone’s eyes immediately raising to his in multiple looks or caution and wariness, almost as if they are afraid of how he will react. He doesn’t.

            Nicky is the first to find his voice again, scrambling out of his seat to cross the room to where he stands. His hand reaches out to touch his shoulder but stops midway before dropping down at his side (somebody was learning).

            “Explain. Now.” is all Andrew offer his cousin, tone not brokering for any disagreement.

            Nicky shakes his head, “We don’t know what happened.”

            “Then explain what you do know.”

            “Right,” he rubs his face, wiping away a few lingering tears before taking a shuddering breath. “Of course. Matt and I were hanging around the dorm looking for any sign of where Neil might have gone if something happened, not that we thought we’d find anything different than the last three time we looked, but we couldn’t just _sit_ there while Neil was missing-”

            “Get to the point Nicky,” his temper was flaring with his already fraying patience and he didn’t have it in him to listen to Nicky’s usual ramblings. He needed answers _now_.

            “Sorry. So like I was saying we were looking around when the door swings open and in staggers, Neil covered in blood and pressing a hand to his stomach where blood stains his shirt and-” Nicky sucks in a deep breath, “Andrew it was bad. He could barely stand, let alone walk. I don’t know how he made to back to Palmetto from wherever the hell he was but it nearly killed him.”

            If Nicky was looking for some sort of reaction he would be sorely mistaken. Andrew remains passive, hands buried in his pockets and his face the same blank mask as if Nicky were discussing the weather. “Then what?”

            “Then Matt picked his ass up and we dragged him to the hospital! Jesus Andrew do you not care even a little?”

            “Nicky,” this time it’s Renee who speaks up

            “No!” Nicky whirls around, “You didn’t see him! Neil was two steps away from death and Andrew can’t even muster up a _grimace._ That’s _Neil_ in there! _That’s Neil._ ”

            Tears pour down in earnest over his cheeks and a sob racks through his body. Andrew remains impassive, blankly staring as his cousin struggles to retain his composure. His mask never slips. Never reveals the anger and destruction hanging on the verge of his last reserve of patience and control. Never showing the fingers curled so tightly against his palms the nails bit through the flesh. So yes, as far as they were concerned he was emotionless because if he wasn’t, he’d rip them all apart just to satisfy the need _to destroy_.

            Luckily before he can give into the urge Wymack emerges through the two large doors that lead further into the ICU along with a distraught looking Abby following at his heels. Whatever protest Nicky may have had planned died on his lips at the sight of their coach, several of the foxes scrambling from their chairs to greet whatever news the man may have had. Wymack in turn only looks over his team with a grimace and the face of a man who has seen too many tragedies happen to the ones he cares about. Though, Andrew shouldn’t expect anything less of the man who makes it his life’s mission to collect broken people for the sole purpose of doling out second chances.

            His gaze shifts over to Andrew who meets it head-on with an intensity only Neil and he have been able to recognize. It is one that demands the truth and one that demands it _now_.

            Wymack obliges.

            “It’s not good,” he says to the whole group, but his eyes never leave Andrew’s. “He’s awake and the nurses said you can see him — only a few at a time mind you, the last thing this hospital needs is you shit heads causing a ruckus in the ICU— but he- ”

            He never gets the chance to finish, Andrew barreling past him through the doors the coach emerged from only moments before and heading down the hall.

            “Room 213!”  He hears Wymack call from his back followed by the sound of two sets of footsteps closely at his heels, Nicky and Matt’s if he had to guess. It doesn’t matter, Andrew only had one thing on his mind.

            He quickly navigates through the maze of halls and rooms, eyes quickly darting around to observe signs directing to where he needs to be, feet never faltering nor slowing down despite to two thundering footsteps desperately trying to keep up with him. When he finally spots the 213 engraved on the small placard outside an otherwise nondescript door.

            The pounding in his ears reaches an all-time high, drowning out the sound of his own harsh breaths and the roaring of blood rushing through his veins until the sole thing he can focus on is the handle to the door and what lies behind it. For a moment he wonders if he even wants to know —wants to _see_ the product of his own failure— but he quickly pushes that aside because what’s behind that door is _Neil_ and if there is one thing in this world that could make him want it was him, no matter what condition or how broken he may or may not be.

            He opens the door.

            The world snaps back into focus, the drumbeat finally silencing as Andrew drinks in Neil. He’s sitting in the middle of the bed, bandages covering his left arm and peeking out from the flimsy hospital gown they have him dressed in. His face remains largely untouched (a miracle thinking about the amount of times that tongue of his has made someone want to bash it in) not counting the bandage that is wrapped around his head in a stark white contrast to the soft auburn curls. Otherwise, the damage looks minimal. Though Andrew knows just how deep some wounds can dig without leaving a scar; he’s had years of proof living on his arms as a reminder.

            Still, his idiot seems to be in one piece and alive which in itself is enough to almost make him sag in relief. Behind him the two idiots finally seem to catch up, coming to an abrupt halt at his shoulders, both making pained noises of relief at the sight of his idiot (presumably not covered in blood). It is a movement that would make his body twitch in discomfort (even after all these years he cannot stand to have his back uncovered, not even among the foxes) if not for the unwavering attention on the boy in front of him who has yet to move from his position on the bed despite the noise. The same heavy lead of dread sinks its claws in Andrew’s stomach.

            “Oh thank god, you’re okay” it’s Matt who breaks the silence, cautiously stepping around Andrew to move further into the room and towards Neil. “You had us all scared man.”

            “Yeah,” this time it’s Nicky, “We were all worried and when you just collapsed like that.” Nicky chokes off a pained sob, “Let’s not do that again, shall we? It was bad enough having to drag your cute limp ass out of Columbia once, I didn’t need a repeat.”

            Neil doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look at them. His eyes remain trained to the wall in front of him, blue pupils glossed over and unseeing of the world around them.

            “Neil?”

            Nothing.

            “Come on Neil, this isn’t funny. Say something man.”

            The drumbeat is back, quickly drowning the relief Andrew once had into a thundering fear, the same that had crawled into his body when Neil was taken from Binghamton and again when he realized that Neil wasn’t coming back from his run two days earlier.

            “Neil.” His voice is gruff and laced with anger. Anger at him, anger at whoever did this, anger at himself for letting it happen. Still, it is not enough to draw his attention from the wall.

            Matt walks over and waves a hand in front of his eyes, trying to draw his mind back to reality. It doesn’t work.

            “Neil?” Nicky cautiously joins Matt at his side, “Can you hear us?”

            No he couldn’t, his eyes still unfocused and the world muted and grey. So Andrew tries the one thing that has never failed.

            “ _Abram_.”

            The name seems to shock movement in the otherwise limp body. His head turning to Andrew and the dull blue eyes lowering ever so slightly to level with his own. And if Andrew thought something was wrong before, it is only cemented by the dead look that greets him now on Neil’s face. It is one that is both achingly familiar and yet completely foreign as it mars the features of Neil’s too blue eyes and sharp cheekbones. It is one that doesn’t belong on the face that once looked so fondly so many hours again.

            Perhaps that is why he’s moving before his mind can even process the movement, crossing the room in large strides and wrapping a hand around his neck and yanking their foreheads together in a too sharp movement. Yet Andrew cannot be bothered by the sting as he forces their eyes to meet mere inches apart. The heat of the skin beneath his fingertip a contradiction to the cold and lifeless look he stares into now.

            “ _Stop this,_ ” Andrew growls, demands.

            He waits, but there is no glimmer of recognition, no flicker of the fire that had once lit those eyes. No trace of Neil at all. And if he thought he felt fear before, it is nothing compared to the chill that runs through his body now at the sight of those blue eyes looking at him but not _seeing_. If it weren’t for the faint pulse beating against his hand, he wouldn’t know that they were alive at all. He lets his hand fall and step back. Nicky and Matt just stare at him, their faces twisted in both concern and unease as they look between him and the unmoving form of the boy they once knew and grew to care about.

            “Nicky, get a doctor. _Now_.”

***

            “It appears that your friend has slipped into a catatonic state where he remains unresponsive any sort of outside stimuli,” the doctor had told them.

            “What does that mean? Why is he like this?” Dan had asked, but Andrew already knew the answer the doctor would give before she shook her head.

            “We don’t know. It could be a reaction to the extensive amount of trauma his body went through while he was missing. He had multiple lacerations covering his arm and abdomen not to mention the extensive damage someone had done to his right leg. I don’t know if it was lucky that his attacker missed the important arteries and vein or not, but he is lucky you got him to us when you did. With a bit of physical therapy, he should be able to fully recover and he’s stable for the time being.”

            “If he’s stable then why isn’t he responding?”

            “Like I said we don’t know. My best guess is that is some sort of defense mechanism Neil had put into place to prevent his body from going into shock as a result of the damage to his body.”

            “When will he wake up?” This time it was Wymack who had spoken up, voicing the question ringing throughout all their minds.

            This time when the doctor answers, her voice is low and apologetic. “We don’t know.”

            That conversation had been nearly a day ago. By now most of the foxes had drifted home, a few coming around in shift to see if Neil’s status had any change or in case of Nicky and Renee to make sure Andrew ate something other than whatever snacks he could grab from the vending machine down the hall. But even as they all left, Andrew never did, sticking at Neil’s bedside late until the night waiting for Neil to return.

            He’d given up on trying to reach him, his words falling on deaf ears in the silence of the night and drowned out by the steady beep of the EKG reminding Andrew that Neil is alive despite everything else that told him he might as well be dead. He never looked at Andrew again after that first instance, no matter the name Andrew called him (though he tried all of those he knew). Neil was lost to him, stuck in his own head until he resurfaced back in reality. _If_ he resurfaced back in reality.

            Because there was no guarantee that he would, the doctors claiming that his catatonic state could last anywhere from hours to days or even months if the psychological damage was strong enough. It is this uncertainty that plagues Andrews thoughts as he watches Neil sleep.  Unable to close his own eyes because of the nightmares that await him the moment he lets himself relax enough to slip into unconsciousness. Nightmares of Neil slipping from his fingertips and running off into the thick blackness that Andrew cannot follow or the earth opening at his feet and him falling with no end in sight and Neil watching him lifeless at the edge. No, it was much better to stay awake. 

            His fingers itch to hold a cigarette, but that would mean getting up to leave and he’s not quite sure he can pry himself away long enough to finish one. Not when Neil’s too defenseless to prevent any kind of attack. Not when the threat of what had done this to him is still out there. So Andrew shoves his craving down and lets his head hang back against the wall, hitting it with a soft thump.

            “Fuck,” he growls, partially because the word feels good on his tongue, mostly because he feels so fucking _useless_. More useless than he’s let himself be in a long time, but no amount of training or unfeeling nature will help him solve the issue of Neil’s trauma. He is left to wait it out like the rest of the foxes.

            “ _Fuck._ ”

            His words must have been loud enough because a moment later, Neil is stirring from his sleep and sitting up in the bed, head turned towards Andrew for the first time since he used Neil’s true name. For a pathetic moment he hopes for a glimmer of _something_ in those eyes, but they retain the same blank dead look that graced them since they found him. Andrew wants to knock it off his face.

            “Staring.”

            Instead of the usual smart remark or even the soft smile that usually greets his taunt, the stare is his only response. Something like anger twists inside of him, burning hot through his veins and making him rise from his seat with such a force that it clatters behind him in a noisy crash. Neil doesn’t even flinch.

            As quick as the anger built, it fades to a dull simmer, leaving him empty and cold and faced with the reality he always knew was coming. He lost Neil. The sting of the revelation still as sharp and cutting despite a part of him knowing deep down that this was always how it would turn out; that in the end Neil would have always been taken from him because nothing nice ever lasts in Andrew’s life. Not Cass, not Aaron and certainly not the boy who made him _feel_ after so many years of numbness and forced mania.

            “Fuck you,” he growls, because what else does he have to lose?

            “You think you can just walk into my life and fuck with my head and then _leave?_ That you can sit there and make me _want_ and _feel_ when I don’t? You’re nothing. _Nothing_. So who the fuck are you to walk away now?”

            Silence. His eyes never even blinking at his sudden rage.

            “I should have left you back on the dirt in Millport. I should have never fucking let you stay.”

            Nothing. It almost hurts

            “God damn it!” He stalks over to the bed until they are only separated by the smallest of spaces (Andrew still unwilling to breach that final distance without explicit permission that it was okay. Something he may never get again.)

            “You don’t get to leave. Not now. Not after all of this.”

            His shoulders sag and the fight leaves his body, the empty feeling threatening to consume him entirely this time. Andrew isn’t sure he wants to stop it. His jaw clenches and he runs a hand through his hair, fingers tugging harshly at the roots just so he could feel something other than the overwhelming numbness crawling up his throat.

            “ _Please._ ”

            The word taste acidic on his tongue, having not murmured them since all those years ago in a different dark room in a different bed with a dark figure looming over his small hunched over form in hopes that it will do something. That it would stop. But it never did and it wouldn’t now. He feels as pathetic as that seven-year-old boy too young to know the world wasn’t anything but cruel.

            “You don’t like that word.”

            His eyes snap open and lock onto the source of that voice, one scratchy and raw from disuse but all together so familiar. This time when he meets those blue eyes, they look back in recognition and confusion, brows pinched together and his lips twitching in a small frown. It’s so characteristically Neil, that Andrew nearly sags under his own weight.

            “Andrew?”

            He doesn’t respond, words too caught in his throat to squeeze past his lips. Instead, he moves closer to the bed, hands itching to reach out, but staying firmly at his side. Neil looks up at him, confusion still dancing in his eyes in a beautiful sign that he was back. That he found his way back to Andrew.

            “200%.”

            Neil frowns but doesn’t contradict him. “I’m-”

            Anger spikes through his chest, “Shut up. If you finish that sentence with either sorry or fine, I’m going to cut your tongue out.” Because he cannot handle hearing either of those words right now. Not when the rawness of almost losing him was too fresh and his name still beats wildly against his chest.

            “Okay,” Neil answers softly, his hands reaching for his in a silent question. Andrew lets him slips their finger together.

            “Yes or no?” he asks roughly.

            Neil smiles softly, “Yes.”

            Later Andrew will find out that it was one of Nathan’s men, one of the few who had escaped the wrath of the Hartfords that night, that had dragged Neil into a car during his run. That the fate of the man was left ambiguous as Neil quietly claims he took care of it and said nothing more. But for now, all Andrew cares about is the warm press of Neil’s lips against his own and the matching heartbeat under his palm as he reassures himself that Neil is alive, that they’re _both_ alive. Because for once Andrew doesn’t need those answers immediately. They have time.

            “205%.”


End file.
